Monday, May 25, 2009
Antony & The Johnsons 21/5
This concert with Antony and the Johnsons was even more of a magical experience than I'd anticipated. With a superb six-piece band variously playing cello, violin, drums, guitar, clarinet and sax, Antony Hegarty sat at the grand piano in subdued atmospheric lighting, his astounding voice soaring across the Dome and leaving you swooning. Hegarty's hilarious banter with the audience between songs belied his sometimes aloof image, cracking jokes about his home town of Chichester, Catholic upbringing and the 'fruitiness' of Brighton.
The preponderence of songs from recent album The Crying Light highlighted their qualities in a way I've not got to grips with on CD, displaying a pastoral character almost in the English folk song tradition, and two rousing standing ovations showed the audience was in no doubt we'd been witness to a truly extraordinary performance.
The preponderence of songs from recent album The Crying Light highlighted their qualities in a way I've not got to grips with on CD, displaying a pastoral character almost in the English folk song tradition, and two rousing standing ovations showed the audience was in no doubt we'd been witness to a truly extraordinary performance.
